Social contradictions behind the mass protests in Iran

                    By Ute Reissner

                    16 July 1999

                    The week-long student protests in Iran have assumed civil war
                    proportions. Following renewed mass meetings in a number of cities
                    together with the attempt by hundreds of students to storm the Interior
                    Ministry on Tuesday the ruling powers called for a mass
                    counter-demonstration by supporters of the government. At the
                    pro-government demonstration of several tens of thousands the vice
                    chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rauhani,
                    indirectly threatened members of the opposition movement with the death
                    penalty, which, in view of the current tensions, can be regarded as a
                    thinly disguised call for lynch justice.

                    The day before police, supported by secret police and paramilitary
                    troops, brutally clubbed down several thousand demonstrators taking
                    part in a protest meeting. For some days it has not just been students
                    taking part in the demonstrations. Broad layers of the population have
                    expressed their solidarity. Eyewitnesses and participants have reported
                    how demonstrators fleeing from the security forces were given shelter
                    and support in surrounding houses.

                    The tremendous dynamic of events stems from the profound social
                    contradictions tearing apart Iranian society. The original attempt by the
                    ruling powers to make use of the protests by exuding expressions of
                    understanding for the student actions and promising improvements has
                    collapsed, alongside the efforts of President Khatami to channel the
                    movement behind his own political “endeavours for reform”.

                    The movement lacks a clear political orientation. A divide rapidly
                    emerged amongst the students between those favouring “compromises”,
                    who stand firmly behind President Khatami, with his calls for calm and
                    level-headedness, and the “radicals”, who were not prepared to back
                    down. According to available sources, however, the radical students limit
                    their calls to entirely justifiable but short-term demands such as the
                    release of all imprisoned students, the punishment of those responsible for
                    the brutal attacks on students, and so on. From just a few quarters is the
                    call to be heard for the resignation of leading religious figures and of state
                    president Khatami himself.

                    For some years the domestic development in Iran has been marked by a
                    vigorous conflict inside the ruling institutions of power. On one side is the
                    established Islamic clergy with its leader, the highest state authority,
                    Ayatollah Khamenei, and on the other side the “reform faction” of
                    President Khatami which seeks a closer collaboration with the United
                    States and Europe. Khatami assumed office in May 1997 following a
                    spectacular election success. He allowed a number of opposition
                    movements and newspapers to function, while at the same time,
                    semi-official thugs employed by the government undertook a wave of
                    repression against precisely these opposition elements.

                    The intervention, however, of broad layers of the masses over the space
                    of a few days has made the nature and limitations of Khatami's
                    “democratic impulses” unmistakably clear.

                    At the beginning of the protests the students carried aloft oversized
                    pictures of the president, whom they revered as a champion of
                    democracy and freedom. In the meantime, however, Khatami himself has
                    assumed his place on the other side of the barricades. In a television
                    broadcast on Tuesday evening he described the students as
                    troublemakers seeking to damage the government. Behind the protests,
                    according to Khatami, was a violent threat to the security of the Iranian
                    state.

                    For the time being the main aim of the various factions of the governing
                    elements is to clear the masses from the streets. In a fitting commentary
                    the German Suddeutsche Zeitung on July 14 wrote: “There is just one
                    thing that could really endanger the system: when the student protests
                    become the catalyse for widespread, but up until now amorphous,
                    dissatisfaction. Millions of Iranians are underemployed and underpaid.
                    They are not against the Islamic system of values but they want a better
                    life. Millions work a 16-hour day with two or three different jobs and are
                    still barely able to eke out a living for their families ... for the majority of
                    university graduates there are no jobs, for bored youth there remains just
                    the dangerous toying with Western pop culture, drugs and sexual
                    experiments.

                    “Should all of these very different tendencies amalgamate, then even the
                    finest secret service in the world will not be able to prevent something
                    developing which up until now has only partially existed: political
                    structures with leaders.”

                    In its edition of July 12 Die Welt newspaper described the social
                    situation in the country as follows: “Despite successes with birth control
                    the present Iranian population of 68 million will double by the year 2025.
                    Sixty percent of the population of Iran is younger than 20 years old, and
                    with unemployment officially at 14 percent, an additional 800,000 youth
                    are seeking jobs every year. Spending power stands at a third of the level
                    at the time of the revolution. And poverty is on the march.”

                    Khatami reacted to the crisis with policies which, under the heading
                    “enhancing democracy,” were directed at opening up Iran to US and
                    European economic interests.

                    Khatami was formerly (from 1979) chairman of the Islamic Centre in the
                    German city of Hamburg, and speaks fluent English and German. Since
                    his election as president two years ago he has maintained close links with
                    representatives of the US government—even going so far as to give an
                    unprecedented interview to an American news program.

                    Inside Iran Khatami won popularity over the last period by allowing
                    investigations into a series of brutal murders of writers and
                    representatives of opposition groups and publications, carried out by the
                    secret police toward the end of last year. Shortly before regional
                    elections in February, he pushed through the resignation of the minister
                    responsible for the secret security services. This was a major factor in the
                    sweeping majority (70 percent) that his supporters were able to record in
                    the elections.

                    It is not just recent events, however, which have revealed that at the heart
                    of Khatami's “struggle for democracy” are manoeuvres in a faction fight
                    inside the ruling echelons.

                    According to reports from “The Iran Brief” http://www.iran.org/tib/,
                    which is prepared for, amongst others, the Foreign Affairs committees of
                    the US Congress, the investigations into the series of murders implicate
                    leading circles around Ayatollah Khamenei. Khatami has since made a
                    deal with Khamenei to keep the report prepared by deputy Younesi
                    under wraps. For his part Khamenei was expected to protect Khatami
                    from the “hard-liners”.

                    According to the “The Iran Brief,” Khatami demanded additionally that a
                    “Supreme Economic Council” under the leadership of his closest
                    confidante Hossein Moussavi should assume various powers for the
                    direction of economic policy. Parliament was to have no right to interfere
                    in economic policy. In addition the Finance Ministry was to take over
                    control of the Bonjad-e Mostafazan Foundation, which currently
                    organises the Iranian economy along the lines of its nominal chairman
                    Khamenei, and principally in the interests of the bazaar market traders of
                    Teheran.

                    Despite the no-holds-barred struggle between the factions, the issues
                    have in reality little to do with a struggle between “democratic reformers”
                    and “fanatical mullahs”. For Khatami the real issue is not democracy and
                    for Khamenei it is not religion. The conflict revolves around the political
                    orientation of the Iranian bourgeoisie under the transformed geopolitical
                    situation following the collapse of the Soviet Union and under conditions
                    of a severe economic and social crisis.

                    The “opening up of the country” propounded by Khatami coincides with
                    the recently renewed interest on the part of the American government for
                    limited collaboration with Iran as a factor for regional stability.

                    This policy is incompatible with democratic rights. The political and social
                    aspirations of the population can only be achieved with a socialist
                    program uniting the oppressed peoples of the entire region.